


Red Wine

by Welfycat



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Criminal Minds Kink Meme, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 04:53:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/427096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Welfycat/pseuds/Welfycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Truth or Dare is difficult to play with BAU profilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red Wine

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Красное вино](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1285228) by [Bathilda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bathilda/pseuds/Bathilda)



> Written for Crimeland's Celebrations challenge, and the CM Kink Meme Prompt located [here](http://cm-kink.dreamwidth.org/1911.html?thread=136311#cmt136311).  
> Content Notes: Discussion (non-graphic) of a non-consensual sexual encounter between a minor and an adult with alcohol involved.  
> Author Notes: Pre-series, around two years before the show starts.

Spencer arrived at Morgan's place exactly on time, waving when he saw Garcia getting out of her car across the street. She was trying to balance two plastic containers along with a bottle of wine and Spencer darted across the mostly vacant street to help her, only to wind up overbalancing both of them against the side of her car.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," Spencer said quickly, managing to grab the bottle of wine while she held onto the containers. "I was just trying to help."

"Aww, aren't you a cutie? JJ told me you were," Garcia said and only grinned instead of complaining that he'd nearly knocked her over.

Spencer blushed and examined the bottle in his hands for something to do. Garcia had only been working with their team for around two months and this was the first time they'd done something as a team outside of work since then.

"Are you two going to just stay out there or are you coming in where the party is?" Morgan called as he leaned out his window from the second story. "I'll buzz you up if you get over here."

"Of course you will," Garcia called back with a grin. "You wouldn't leave us out here all by ourselves, would you?"

"I wouldn't leave you out in the cold, baby girl," Morgan returned and even from the ground Spencer could see that he was winking in her direction. "Him, on the other hand, I'm not so sure."

"Very funny," Spencer said, gently untangling his arm from where Garcia had latched onto him.

Garcia shook her head as they crossed the street. "Don't listen to him, he's all bark and no bite, I know the type. And, you're with me and you're carrying the wine, so he has to let you in. I'll even make sure you get the first glass."

Spencer was about to shake his head and say that he didn't really drink wine, but the door latch popped open to let them inside and his words were lost in Garcia squealing and waving to where JJ had just pulled up to the curb. Spencer waited, holding the door until JJ joined them, and they all went upstairs to where Hotch and Morgan were already getting started.

After tucking the bottle of wine Garcia had brought on the counter, where hopefully Garcia would forget that she'd promised him a glass, Spencer grabbed a plate and some of the cookies that Hotch had brought and brownies that Garcia had evidently made. He sat down on the edge of the couch, listening to the chatter of the team and occasionally chiming in, and was a little bit surprised at how he didn't feel out of place like he usually did in social gatherings. Of course, six people he saw almost every day barely qualified as a party, but it was close enough.

"There you are," Garcia said, sitting down next to him and holding up two very full wine glasses. "Just like I promised."

There was a lull in the conversation and Spencer noticed that both Hotch and Morgan were watching from their armchairs. "Thank you," Spencer said, accepting the glass of wine and taking a sip despite the way the flavor of the red wine made his stomach start to ache. He waited a few seconds and took another sip, bolder this time, and hoped that would be enough to stave off comments about him only being twenty-two and asking if they were certain that he was actually over the legal drinking age and he didn't have a fake ID. Spencer had heard all of those jokes before, way too often, and he knew he didn't look like he was even twenty-one yet. He didn't need to hear it from the men he was trying to get to respect him and his abilities.

No one commented and the conversation swung to football, something which everyone seemed to have an opinion on and Spencer was at least able to offer some of the statistics he'd happened to memorize from sheer boredom when a book on the subject had been the only reading material available. A little while later Morgan came around with the wine bottle again and refilled Spencer's mostly empty glass, and Spencer continued to sip at the wine in hopes of desensitizing himself to the taste. No one had remarked on the fact that he was drinking alcohol and he very much hoped to keep it that way.

"Okay, Truth or Dare!" Garcia exclaimed when conversation had died down again and everyone was just lounging and enjoying spending time away from case files and dead bodies.

Spencer looked up, expecting at least Hotch to object. Instead Hotch only looked marginally amused and said "let's keep it to truth. I don't want to get up, and I don't want to know what type of dares you people can dream up."

Everyone laughed, including Spencer, and Garcia grinned broadly. "Fine, since we're playing by your rules, you get to start. Factual truth or embarrassing truth?" she asked.

"What's the distinction?" Hotch asked, with the little arch of his eyebrows he used when he was both surprised and interested.

"Factual truth means the question is about you or your past, embarrassing truth means I ask you about what you feel about something or a would-you-rather type thing. I mean, either way it will be embarrassing, but that's the whole point," Garcia said, and took another sip from the wine glass in her hands.

Spencer took another sip of his own, he'd been timing his drinks with Garcia's in hopes to approach something that looked normal - not that he'd ever imagine that Garcia fit the definition of normal in any form, just like him.

"Factual truth," Hotch said finally, keeping his gaze steady.

"Hmm," Garcia said, exaggerating her expressions as she came up with a question. "Okay. What's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done?"

Everyone laughed again and Hotch brought his chin down as he chuckled. "Really, that's the best you can come up with?"

"I think it's pretty good considering that you're stalling," Garcia shot back.

"And who has been teaching you to profile?" Hotch returned as he straightened his shoulders. "Alright, most embarrassing thing I've ever done. The first time I asked Haley out, I couldn't even look her in the eye and I was speaking so quickly and quietly that she had to ask me to repeat myself three times before I finally blurted: 'please go out with me'."

"Aww," Garcia and JJ both cooed in unison while Morgan just continued to laugh.

Hotch turned to Morgan with a slightly predatory glance. "Morgan, Factual or embarrassing?"

Morgan continued to smirk. "Embarrassing, bring it on!"

Spencer thought most of the fun in this was watching his usually very stern and proper boss trying to come up with an embarrassing question that wasn't too inappropriate to ask a subordinate. He took another sip of wine, allowing himself to pull a face at the taste now that no one was watching him, and he pulled his feet up onto the couch so he was sitting with his legs folded.

"What happened on the worst date you've been on?" Hotch finally asked. "Be specific, unlike your case reports."

Morgan groaned and tipped his head back. "You are cruel."

"Payback's a bitch," Hotch said with a smug smile and settled in to watch Morgan suffer.

Spencer settled back and listened as people asked and answered questions. He was slightly drowsy and slightly nauseous, and kept his eyes focused on his wine glass. There was less than an inch of the Merlot left and the light made interesting patterns on the skin of his hands when he turned the glass slowly.

"Spencer, factual or embarrassing," Garcia said, twisting around so she could see him properly.

"Uh," Spencer said, surprised at being addressed. He thought he'd been forgotten about when no one had called his name in the first round of questioning. "Factual," he said quickly, figuring that had to be better than embarrassing.

Garcia looked thoughtful and then rose her eyebrows. "Are you a virgin?"

Spencer's hand clamped down so tightly on the wine glass he was surprised it didn't break. He didn't have to look up to know that everyone was watching him, all interested in what answer he'd give. "Not a virgin," he said, because his first instinct was to tell the truth, especially when he was surrounded by people who could easily tell when he was lying.

"Details," Morgan called after the small silence that meant Spencer had surprised at least a few of his coworkers. "Everyone else had to give details, it's only fair."

He immediately wished that he'd just lied and been obvious about it. He couldn't give details if there were none to give, and they would know now if he lied and they would call him on it. "It was when I was working on my first doctorate, mathematics at Cal Tech. Uh, with my dissertation advisor."

There was another moment of silence and Spencer knew he'd surprised them again.

"Whoa, Spence," JJ said, leaning around Garcia to get a better look at him. "She must have been something, huh?"

Spencer licked his lips and locked his eyes back on his wine glass. He could just nod, say yes that 'she' was attractive and whatever else it was that people said when they were romantically involved. He could say that, lie and then direct a question to someone else, but he knew that he'd already let the silence drag out too long. Mostly though, he didn't want to lie, not about something as stupid and as simple as this. "He. He was my dissertation advisor and he had brought me to his apartment so we could have dinner and talk about math."

"Reid, weren't you like seventeen when you were working on your first doctorate?" Morgan asked, his voice sounding distant even in the small space of the living room.

"I'd just turned sixteen," Spencer said, as he swirled the wine in his glass. "I was sixteen and stupid, and he kept pouring more merlot in my glass. I didn't, I hadn't drank much alcohol before, and I didn't realize that I wouldn't be able to think like I usually do. Everything seemed to slow down."

Spencer put his glass to his lips and tipped his head back, drinking the rest of the wine in one swallow and then placing the glass on the side table before the slight tremor in his hands made him drop it. He kept his gaze up, trying to be strong and brave just like Hotch was, and fixed his eyes on a point on the far wall. "I couldn't make myself clear, couldn't tell him that I didn't want him to kiss me and I didn't want to go into his bedroom. Everything I tried to say was just a mess of words. Later, he kept asking me if I wanted to have dinner with him or he'd ask to meet me off campus in order to discuss my progress. I almost switched programs, thought about switching schools, but I'd be done in three months and then it wouldn't matter. I received my doctorate in mathematics that December and then moved on to the chemistry department."

With nothing left to say, Spencer couldn't bring himself to give more details than that, he looked around the room and waited for the reactions he had always imagined would come if told. Primarily he'd been expecting indifference; what did it matter if six years ago he got drunk and did something he didn't want to do? Maybe disgust if they had a problem with the fact that his advisor had been male and that the contact had thus been homosexual. Instead he found Garcia with tears in her eyes looking absolutely horrified. JJ was tense and pale, her eyes wide and her hands clenched on her lap. Morgan, who Spencer had suspected would be the most condemning, actually looked ill and had one of his hands pressed against his mouth.

Nervously, Spencer met Hotch's eyes and hoped that this wouldn't be something that would make Hotch take him off the team. Hotch had the tight lines around his mouth and eyes that meant he was suppressing anger, both of his hands purposefully flat against his knees even as his left hand tried to curl in on itself to make a fist.

"Reid, you do understand what he did to you wasn't okay?" Hotch said, his tone deceptively mild.

Spencer nodded, the movement a small jerk of his head that felt jarring. "I know," he agreed, and intellectually he did know that. He'd been under the age of consent, he'd been intoxicated beyond the point where he would have been able to have given consent, and at no point had he wanted to have intercourse with his dissertation advisor. On the other side of the spectrum, emotionally, he remembered being digging his fingernails into the palms of his hands as he told himself that if he'd just made it clearer that he didn't want what was happening, surely his advisor would have stopped.

"I am so sorry. I shouldn't have asked that question," Garcia said as a few tears dripped unchecked down her face.

"It's fine," Spencer said, trying to smile at her but he was sure that it wasn't coming out right. "Don't worry about it."

"Can I, can I hug you? Is that okay?" she asked.

In general Spencer didn't like to be hugged, he never had even from when he was a small child. It always felt like his skin was itching, like he was rooted to the spot until he was released, just like when he had to shake hands with people but worse. Spencer knew there was no way he could turn her request down, not after that conversation. It would look like he was so traumatized he couldn't even accept physical contact from a coworker who obviously meant him no harm. "If you want to," he said, and moments later Garcia's arms were wrapped around his back.

"I'm so sorry," she said in a whisper, and this time Spencer didn't think she meant about asking the question.

"It's fine," Spencer said again, trying to show his relief when she released him.

The room was quiet, though Morgan had gotten up from his chair and had moved to stand in the kitchen with his back to everyone. Spencer could see where his hands were clinging to the edge of the counter, the strength of his grip defining all of the muscles in his bare forearms.

"I, uh, think I'm going to head out, if that's alright?" Spencer asked as he stood, picking up his glass and his empty plate.

"I'll drive you," Hotch said with a nod to Spencer's empty wine glass - Hotch had stopped drinking after one beer, probably in anticipation of watching out for his team. From his tone of voice and the intensity in his posture now that he was also standing, Spencer got that it wasn't an offer he would be allowed to refuse.

"Okay," Spencer agreed, because what else could he say. He moved toward the kitchen but stopped abruptly when JJ stepped into his path.

"Call me, if you need anything," she said, one of her hands reaching out helplessly.

Spencer could tell that she wanted to hug him too, but she knew better than Garcia about how much he didn't like to be touched. "I will," he said, even though he couldn't imagine that he would.

JJ finally settled for resting her hand over Spencer's wrist where his shirt was between her and his skin. It wasn't a bad compromise, far more tolerable than a hug or a handshake, and Spencer managed a better smile for JJ than he had for Garcia.

"I mean it, call me this weekend or I will show up at your apartment and you will let me in so we can sit and watch infomercials or something," JJ said, her small, unhappy smile mirroring Spencer's exactly.

Spencer nodded and pulled away, making it into the kitchen without anyone else stopping him. He placed the glass and the plate in the sink, looking out the window at the slowly darkening sky and wondering if he could get Hotch to just drop him at the VRE instead of taking him all the way back to his apartment. Probably not, but it would be worth trying.

"Reid," Morgan said, his voice as quiet as Spencer had ever heard it.

Spencer braced himself and turned, not knowing what to expect from his coworker who was usually the most bold and brash. Morgan wasn't one to mince words and he didn't hold back on what he was thinking either. Spencer wasn't sure he wanted to know what Morgan was thinking right now.

"You know it wasn't your fault, right?" Morgan asked, looking distinctly uncomfortable. "You were basically a kid, you trusted him, and he had no right to do that to you. It wasn't your fault."

Spencer swallowed and tried not fidget or look away. "I know that," he said. Knowing and believing were different things though, and Spencer knew he wasn't as helpless as the team seemed to think he was. Of course, now that they knew about this it would be even harder to change that preconception.

"Good. Just making sure," Morgan said. He didn't move to touch him, didn't move away from the counter at all, and Spencer hurried away and grabbed his bag from the door.

"Goodnight," Hotch called as they left and Spencer gave a small wave as they left Morgan's apartment. They got a weak 'goodnight' from JJ and Garcia, and Hotch pulled the door shut with an air of finality.

"You're in Van Ness, right?" Hotch asked as they approached his SUV.

"Right," Spencer said and climbed in, not looking forward to the thirty minute ride.

"Are you taking me off the team?" Spencer asked when they were most of the way to his apartment and neither of them had spoken the entire trip.

Hotch turned enough to actually stare at Spencer for a moment, his surprise evident, and then he looked back at the road. "No, I'm not. Why do you think I would?"

"Because I didn't report a criminal," Spencer said and took a slow breath as he felt his chest tighten painfully. "You know the statistics as well as I do. People who commit-"

"Rape," Hotch supplied when Spencer didn't find the word after a minute. "That's what he did to you, legally."

Spencer felt like his his chest, neck and face were on fire. "People who commit rape almost never only assault one person. By not reporting him, I allowed him to hurt other people," he said, finally giving voice to the guilt that had plagued him for years. He startled a little when he noticed that Hotch was pulling over to the side of the road, and was briefly confused until he saw that they were outside of his apartment building.

"Spencer, who were you going to tell?" Hotch asked as he turned off the car and looked at Spencer in the near dusk. "From what I know about you, you were all alone at school. You had no support system, no peers at the same age and education level, and no family who were geographically close to you. Look at it from the perspective of a profiler: who would you tell?"

"No one," Spencer said, finally looking at Hotch. "I thought if I told the police, I would get thrown out of school for drinking when I was underage."

Hotch nodded. "It makes sense that you'd be worried about not being in school when it was your entire life at the time. You wouldn't do anything to jeopardize that. Now is different though, you have the team. The statue of limitations has passed for what happened you, but like you said, if there's one victim there are likely others. If you want, we could initiate an investigation."

"I, uh," Spencer said, feeling that wave of guilt again when his answer wasn't immediately yes.

"It's okay, take some time to think about it. Tell me later," Hotch said. He moved slowly, making it obviously that he was reaching for Spencer's shoulder before he placed his hand there. He didn't grip or squeeze, he was just a warm and steady presence while Spencer took a few unsteady breaths.

"Thank you, for driving me home," Spencer said, shivering when Hotch moved away. He undid his seat belt and opened the door, suddenly filled with overwhelming gratitude that he was back at his own apartment and wasn't trying to ride the VRE surrounded by people and noise.

Hotch nodded, one of his hands curling into a fist briefly and then relaxing again. "Anytime. Call me when you get in your apartment. Just humor me this once," he said, when Spencer winced.

"Okay, give me about three minutes," Spencer said, hating that he was suddenly getting coddled, and probably would be for a long time now. He started to close the door and then stopped himself. "You're not going to tell Gideon, are you?"

One of Hotch's eyebrows crept up as he considered Spencer. "I won't, but I think he'll realize that something has changed the team dynamic and it won't take him long to figure out that you're at the center of the changes."

Spencer had figured as much, but he thought he'd rather tell Gideon on his own. It was better than Gideon watching all of them with that distant expression he tended to get. "I'll tell him on Monday. I just wanted to be the one to do it."

"Good," Hotch said and nodded his approval.

Spencer shut the passenger door and hurried away, not even sure that he was thinking or feeling anything at all. It was like a hurricane of emotion and memory was surrounding him and he had landed in the eye of the storm. He called Hotch as soon as he'd made it inside the apartment and had locked the door. Minutes later he was on the end of his own couch, a book in his hands just so that he would have something soothing to hold onto, and he breathed through the deafening shock of silence that surrounded him.


End file.
